Rachel Cooke reviews Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide by Kate Charlesworth for The Observer. 

‘Though Charlesworth seemingly leaves no stone unturned, from Tom Robinson to Brookside, from the Lesbian Avengers to Douglas Byng (whom she draws on an old cigarette card), her capacious book never feels wearying; it is an amazing, joyous panorama to which I could never do justice in a short review. Let me, then, just say this. Sensible Footwear is an instant classic: up there with Bryan Talbot’s Alice in Sunderland when it comes to pageant, and with Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home when it comes to pathos.’